DESCRIPTION: (adapted fromn application abstract) The Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and its health care system partner (BJC Health System) seek one year of support from the National Library of Medicine to formalize its IAIMS planning and implementation process across the School of Medicine, the sixteen BJC Health System hospitals, and other BJC and WUSM partners. Like many academic medical centers, the enterprise has a strong information management infrastructure, and, through its approach to managed health care and comprehensive support for academic information management support, is already pursuing many IAIMS-related planning activities. In this case, IAIMS planning will develop synergy among existing activities and provide an overarching framework that will support the informatics efforts of a regional academic health care system. The applicants call this process "IAIMS-in-the-Large" (IAIMS-L). The proposed IAIMS planning addresses five major themes: 1) the role of organizational structure and IAIMS processes; 2) the necessity for a high-performance, reliable, and cost-effective technical information management infrastructure; 3) the changing roles and requirements of health care delivery systems; 4) the evolution of new ways of conducting biomedical research and disseminating biomedical knowledge; and 5) the importance of effective life-long professional education programs. The IAIMS planning efforts will address important topics relevant to these five themes, including: a) development of an IAIMS-L model, IAIMS-L organization and process maps, benchmarks and a dissemination strategy emphasizing the creation and support of an Internet-based IAIMS-L information resource called the "Washington University IAIMS Digital Handbook"; b) a comprehensive and economically sound plan for advanced network management, digital library services, and collaboration technology support; c) a variety of initiatives centered around clinical information systems supporting regional health care delivery and a comprehensive array of academic needs; d) a plan for supporting biomedical databases; and e) extension of satellite laboratories to include ATM-based digital video collaboration and archiving, and integration of advanced information technology into current and planned educational settings.